Morph Labs to hike capital to P500M ahead of IPO in Q2

Cebu-based software company Morph Labs Inc. will raise its capital to P500-million to prepare for an initial public offering (IPO) in the second quarter this year.

The company has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and a listing application with the Philippine Stock Exchange.

Morph Labs, the leading enabler of software as a service (SaaS) is raising its  capital as it moves to  capture a 23-percent share of the $120-billion US software market by 2010 by allowing users to dramatically reduce IT capital and operating costs, making it particularly attractive to small- and medium-size businesses.

 “The proceeds from the IPO will be used to partially finance the company’s global expansion, which is an inevitable development given the rising demand for SaaS applications globally,” company founder Winston Damarillo said.

Based on the filings, Morph Labs will offer a total of 99,397,251 new shares to the public representing about a third of the company’s issued and outstanding capital stock after the IPO.

The offer price is set at between P4.50 to P5.80 per share in the first pure-play software intellectual property IPO in the Philippines.

Earlier, Morph Labs announced the closing of a $1.5-million pre-IPO investment by AO Capital Partners Ltd., headquartered in Hong Kong, and its co-investor, Japan-based CSK Venture Capital Co. Ltd.

 SaaS applications are delivered to users over the Internet and licensed for use by customers on a subscription basis.

 A service called Morph AppSpace allows SaaS application developers to set up the backend for their applications online.

 “Morph AppSpace is a pre-built data center infrastructure for SaaS applications, utilizing virtual and actual servers along with data storage resources and is designed to speed up application developers’ ability to deliver SaaS applications to the market,” Morph Labs CEO David Abramowski said.

He said over 100 SaaS developers are using Morph AppSpace for deploying, delivering and managing applications globally over the Internet.